The Seven Elements
SEVEN ELEMENTS OF GOOD STORYTELLING
I appeal to all computer game project leaders, designers, and writers to consider the issue of the unchecked unsophistication in computer game stories and dialog very seriously and carefully. – Richard “Zdim” Carlson
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PROLOGUE
Much has been said and written about the sorry state of storytelling in computer games, but until Rich Carlson’s on-target prescription not much has been argued on ways to improve matters. Carlson’s appeal goes on to say that game designers should study the art of writing, just like anyone else calling themselves a professional storyteller. Read the books on the topic, take the seminars if possible, and learn from the real pros if you can.
Yet having slogged for dozens of companies over the years working through hundreds of development projects, I can clearly see how the cultivation of one’s craft is easily shoved aside under intense pressure to ship real products. Despite the potential value of reflection and study, few professional designers have the time to read the textbooks, attend the seminars, or even review their own successes – much less anyone else’s work.
But what if the material were posted on-line in bite-sized chunks? Perhaps in five or ten minutes a designer might pick up something worth chewing on – if it were there!
So let’s get started!
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BACKGROUND THEORY
There is one profession that is actually older than the supposedly “oldest profession” – storytelling. And it’s no accident, either. Without storytelling we wouldn’t be here today typing on computers and playing games over the Internet.
Early clans of humans first told stories to teach their children – as we still do today. Which fruit is worth finding? Which mushrooms should be avoided? Where could one discover water in the dry season? All of this was critical for their survival – and storytelling was the only way to pass this knowledge to the next generation. Those groups of people who could tell and remember stories survived. Those who couldn’t, died out. More than simple entertainment, the storyteller’s ability to induce a near-perfect sense of reality is based upon a powerful survival instinct. It’s hard-wired into who we are.
For this reason the storytelling experience has become a central part of our human experience and the very reason why we can so easily immerse ourselves in a book or a movie or a video game. Beyond merely watching or hearing the story unfold, we absorb it completely – diving into it and experiencing the events as though they were happening to us alone. And being such a personal experience, the lessons of each memorable story become rooted in our thoughts to be recalled along with our own personal history.
Then, an odd thing happened on our way to civilization. Someone discovered how stories could be designed and used to make a point – convey a message – instill fear – convert people to a way of thinking – entirely with invented ‘facts.’ Fiction was invented, and we’ve been suffering under its spell ever since.
Until fiction, stories simply retold the most engaging tales from actual prehistory – as selected by an unconscious preference for those most appealing while forgetting the rest. Until fiction, there was no need to understand the structure of stories. People either liked what they heard, or not. Yet with fiction – the telling of invented stories – it was now incumbent on the storyteller to understand the hardwiring – the unconscious structure that makes a story work well.
Telling Stories in Games
To quote Garett “kfgecko” Choy regarding what makes or breaks a good computer game: “It’s the story, stupid.”
Agreed – but how do we create a story?
Thankfully, Aristotle devoted considerable effort to understanding and defining what is required of the storyteller, and his work to this day forms the foundation of every textbook on the subject. According to Aristotle, our human hard-wiring appears to contain a number of fixed rules and only those stories fitting within the boundaries of these rules create the immersion experience. Try as they may, novelists, screenwriters, and game developers are all constrained by this wiring.
What “works” therefore is principally a matter of understanding how people experience stories and what can be done to induce this experience in the audience. A lot is still open for debate. But a lot more has been settled. So here I will begin with seven elements where most professional storytellers agree.
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SEVEN ELEMENTS OF GOOD STORYTELLING
1. A central premise.
2. Strong three-dimensional characters who change over time.
3. A confined space – often referred to as a crucible.
4. A protagonist who is on some sort of quest.
5. An antagonist of some sort bent on stopping the hero.
6. An arch in everything – everything is getting better or worse.
7. And perhaps most important – Conflict.
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1. PREMISE
A premise is the point of the story, like “Power corrupts,” or “Bad people can be turned to good,” or “Saving the world is worth the effort,” or even things that may not be true in the real world like “Good is the same as evil.” By the time the audience reaches the end of the story, they should get this point. In fact, the whole object of everything in the story is to build a case for this point.
To illustrate this, imagine a story that tries to say that “evil is bad,” yet shows evil people getting off without a penalty. This will feel wrong, at best, and most likely downright stupid. How would you feel if the Empire won at the end of the original three Star Wars movies? If your point is to say that good triumphs over evil, then in no uncertain terms your story had better triumph in the end!
Many stories have more than one part to its premise, for example, “Power corrupts, but goodness can redeem the corrupted.” In fact, this very combination is perhaps what makes the original Star Wars movies so satisfying.
Just like the whole story, characters have their own premises as well – mainly in the form of what they believe about themselves – even if not entirely true. It defines their beliefs, convictions and wants – all of which can be summed up in one or two statements such as “hard work is important” or “I always tell the truth.” If characters violate their premise –for example, a hard-worker who suddenly slacks off for no reason, or a truth-teller who tells a lie– we feel immediately that something is wrong since we’re no longer able to match their actions with the stories they’ve been telling us about themselves. It’s usually considered a contrivance if a character is set up one way by the writer, then suddenly for little reason abandons their premise in favor of something entirely different – unless the point is to show how they are self-deceived.
You can see that a story has a clean premise when it is easy to say what the story is about in just a few sentences. If you can’t do that, then it probably has no central premise at all. And believe me, that’s one of the main reasons why many computer games seem so lame when it comes to storytelling. There is no point!
If a game developer really wants to induce reality in the mind of the player, then the player has to see a point in being inside the game other than “Hey, check out all the new ways you can frag these bots before they frag you!” Pick something you want to say, and then say it in as many ways as you can from the beginning to the end.
In a game? Yes – especially in a game.
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2. CHARACTER
After the premise has been nailed down, the story design process moves to developing strong, engaging, and believable characters who we will come to care about, root for, despise, or even hate – sometimes all at the same time.
We first see the story as undefined characters wandering around doing things. If what they do doesn’t quickly paint a clear sketch of their personalities – especially their personal premise – we won’t care about them. And instead we’ll quickly lose interest in the story long before it ever gets off the ground, no matter how much is going on.
A lot has been written about the differences among 3D characters, 2D stereotypes, and one-dimensional wallflowers. All of this has to do with how much a character is developed. Main characters need to be as fully developed as the time and space of the story will allow. A lesser “2D” or “one-scene” supporting character (like a tavern keeper) may only reveal one or two aspects of themselves – and this is all the audience would expect. The rest float around as a backdrop to keep the place from feeling too empty – and if they were to say or do anything very noticeable it would simply distract attention from the main events of story.
But what is this thing called character development?
Quite simply, as the story unfolds the audience starts out blank. We then learn about the main characters from what they do, and to a much lesser extent, what they say and don’t say. This information induces and deepens a sense of the character’s personal premise and broader personality – and this is what writers call character growth.
As actions and decisions are played out, the audience is increasingly convinced of what they understanding about these people and especially what they believe about themselves. And based on this understanding we either root for them to succeed, or hope that they fail.
The effect of creating a character in the minds of the audience is tricky – perhaps the hardest part of creative writing – because the characters can only reveal themselves during the course of events – that’s all we really have to work with – letting them be quiet, or aggressive, or thoughtful, or stupid, or snide, or whatever – as events unfold. If characters behave according to their underlying premises then they will reveal themselves believably, and when this happens no one will throw up their hands in disgust saying, “why the hell did he do THAT!”
Being true to a character’s underlying personality is only the beginning, though.
Although the main characters need to be true to themselves, they do not have to be “normal” to be believable. In fact, nobody in the audience wants to see a story about average people. Average people do not change much. Average people do not get in over their heads. Average people are boring and should never be the subject of any story unless they’re merely starting out as ordinary people only to grow from that point. When we first meet Luke Skywalker he’s a whiny and boring kid. But as his past quickly catches up with him he’s forced onto the path of becoming who he was always meant to be – a Jedi knight. Had he stayed a whiny kid, we would have hurled and left the theater in disgust.
The really tricky part is realizing how poorly characters understand themselves – and how the deepest essence of their personality – and most central premise – may lay hidden under what seems like who they are. So the trick is to peel away the more superficial layers by way of events in the story – so they must eventually rely on the core of who they are. Finding this core and revealing it to the audience is the way we ‘develop’ characters. It’s invention masquerading as discovery – exciting, yet rife with pitfalls.
For example, we want in the worst way to have or characters stand up and tell the world about themselves – but some of the most horrendous writing on the planet are those self-revealing monologs peppering Sci-Fi movies and video games. It simply violates a basic rule of human hard-wiring for someone to launch their guts for no reason. No character in fiction –worth respecting– publicly reveals their innermost thoughts unless they are compelled by extreme circumstances. It just doesn’t happen, and should be avoided at all cost.
For characters to become truly believable in the minds of the audience, they must speak almost entirely through their actions – with words spoken or withheld merely to confirm what we already strongly suspect. Princess Leah could have spewed forever over her love for Han Solo – but when she stuck her neck out to rescue him at the beginning of Return of the Jedi only then could we be sure it was true.
Tons more could said here, but for now I’ll leave you with this to chew on…
* Dialog is no substitute for action. As much as possible characters should only confirm what we already suspect from events. The audience doesn’t want to find out anything important from characters chit-chatting – or saying something out of the blue. If a character does reveal something critical in dialogue – there needs to be a compelling reason for them to reveal this information. The weaker the reason – the weaker the dialogue.
* The main characters should be larger than life in some noticeable way – but still within the realm of human nature and personality (even if the story is about and ogre, a donkey, and a squirrel). Something about who they are or what they do must stand out as being unique and extraordinary. The audience must see them as distinct and unforgettable.
* The main characters should barely have the strength to take on their quest at any given point. Characters that are too strong never convince the audience that they’re up against any real challenges. And this goes for both the main hero and the chief “bad guy.”
* Characters that don’t change are boring. Also, characters that get stronger for no good reason are not believable. Characters should only grow as a result of having survived a peril or suffered some sort of loss. Nobody changes in a significant way except through extreme experiences.
* Characters must have a life story (or back story) that leaks into the present story. Although this life story is mostly known only to the writer, events from the past can be summoned to justify how a character might exhibit certain behavior in the present – especially extremely evil behavior.
* Characters should have some weakness or ghost from the past that threatens to derail them on their quest. Even the most overblown and completely unbelievable hero of all time –Superman– has his problems with Kryptonite.
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3. CRUCIBLE
The premise answers the question of what the story is all about. The crucible sets important limits on the size of the story.
If one wishes to melt metal, the heat must be concentrated. And in the same way, a story can only heat up if the events are contained within boundaries of some sort. A story that wanders around or unfolds into a set of unrelated circumstances will confuse the audience with useless details.
Why is the story happening here? Why did these particular characters show up? Why do they stay? What’s so special about this time, this location, and the events that seem to be taking place? For a story to have a chance at making a point, it has to eliminate all extraneous details – focusing on one overall setting and on one group of characters.
Imagine if the Stars Wars movies included hours of documentary footage on the aliens living on all the planets in the area of the action. Perhaps it could be argued that this would be good background information. But it never works. There’s no time for it. And worse, the audience can no longer easily tell what is important from what is mere window dressing – if they haven’t already passed out in their seats from utter boredom.
Good stories must also be confined to a specific time limit as well. An in this way the crucible compresses the action into both a specific space ant time.
Life on a sailing ship heading somewhere, or the workings of a small clique of people organized for a fixed purpose – these work well – especially when confined as on an island, or space ships, or a remote town or culturally confined neighborhood. Epic stories happen to a lot of people in many interrelated settings. Simple stories happen to fewer people and usually in just one place.
The size of the crucible is not as important as how there must actually be a crucible. For example, at its time of production, Heaven’s Gate was the most expensive fiasco in Hollywood history – the movie was nothing more than an assemblage of disconnected settings and events and it left audiences bewildered and lost. At the other extreme, Apollo 13 had a nearly claustrophobic setting for much of the movie, and it worked well because it confined the vast danger of the space mission into a volume far smaller than my office – an inescapable world unto itself and the central focus of everyone’s desire to get these astronauts home alive.
When in doubt – shrink the size of the space and limit the time of events, because this has the greatest chance for the greatest amount of heat when you need it.
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4. PROTAGONIST
The role of the protagonist is to carry the audience through the story as a surrogate. This character is role-playing us and is our gateway to experiencing the story nearly firsthand – which is why this is the most important character. To fulfill this role, the protagonist must see more clearly, understand events sooner, make the best guesses more often, and take the right path when everyone else is ready to jump ship.
Traditionally, this is the main “good guy” character – but not always “good” in a an absolute sense. In fact, we may not even find him to be very endearing at all, such as Harrison Ford’s character in Blade Runner who is dark and brooding while on the case. But we root for him anyway because if nothing else he’s the most likable person in the film – given the other characters.
Sometimes the protagonist is astounding by simply doing what is sensible in the face of evil despite the risks. In Schindler’s List, for example, the factory owner is hardly a saint, but compared to the Nazis, he is someone worth caring about given how he has chosen to resist them.
The most believable protagonists always have problems and flaws that gnaw at them constantly. For them the battle is as much against the demons within as any hurdles in the outside world. And as the hero struggles forward against specters from both directions, it somehow gives eyes to the audience through the magic of our human storytelling hardwiring. While the main character grinds ahead in the quest, the audience experiences the same relief and satisfaction along the way – as though this were our own quest.
Here are some things to consider when creating your protagonist…
* More than anyone else, the protagonist wants the object of the quest, has the best reason for wanting this goal, and is the one most often willing to work the hardest to get it.
* The protagonist starts out mostly ignorant of what lies ahead, and must learn and grow in order to survive long enough to complete the quest.
* The protagonist can not be passive, nor can this character whine or appear wimpy – at least not for very long. The audience will only root for a potential winner willing to work for it, and someone who wins by accident, or while not giving a hoot, will still be viewed as a loser.
* Sometimes the “protagonist” is a group of like-minded people all working for a common goal. But usually, it’s much easier to set things up with one main hero and a strong supporting cast, rather than confuse the audience with more than one lead character in any one story.
* The protagonist is the person in the story we most want to see win because he’s worked for it, has laid it all on the line for it and deserves it – rather than for any sort of sentimentality like he’s a “good guy” and we’d feel sorry for him otherwise. Who do we most care about? – the protagonist. Why do we care? – that’s what the story is about.
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5. ANTAGONIST
The main role of the antagonist is to stand in the way of the protagonist. The story can not end until the protagonist defeats this guy or what he represents in some fitting way. Unfortunately, antagonists are often under-created, and so the desire to see him or her fail is poorly induced. Worse are the antagonists who are not even human – like a computer or alien being showing no human characteristics. Can fully non-human “bad guys” give us a believable reason for why they would want to defeat the hero? Not usually.
But this is not to say that the antagonist has to look human. It can be a computer programmed with a replication of human personality. It can be a god who is half human. It can be a dark force with human characteristics taken from the mind of a very evil human. So long as the antagonist has human evil, or human pride, or a corrupted human ego, or the human need for power – and as long as there is a solid back story underpinning this – then the hero is up against something the audience can believe and understand in its human terms. Otherwise there is no way to figure out why the antagonist would want to stop the hero.
Just as the protagonist has the biggest reason to succeed in the quest, the antagonist has the biggest reason to prevent this success. And it can’t just be that he is a bad person. It has to upset his quest for power. It has to prevent him from fulfilling his lifelong goals. It has to piss him off way down deep where it hurts the most. Darth Vader took it very personally when Luke Skywalker stood in his way because he had a galaxy to conquer.
Both the protagonist and antagonist must desperately wish to succeed in their own ways, and their will to succeed –and even their abilities to do so– must be very closely matched. If the antagonist is too strong –and loses anyway– then the hero’s success is absurd. And if the antagonist is too weak, we have no need to root for the hero.
As hard as it may feel, the writer must put as much effort into designing a formidable and believable antagonist as creating a capable and realistic protagonist.
Here are some things to chew on when creating your antagonist…
* The antagonist has a reason for being who he or she is. Obsessed and corrupted people are usually made, not just born. The antagonist will be far more convincing if there is a good reason for why he has become this person. Only make the antagonist as evil or bad or corrupted as needed for the story.
* What the hero wants must be the opposite of what the antagonist wants, and must stand in the way of the antagonist just as much as how the antagonist stands in the way of the hero. This story isn’t about the antagonist’s evil plans – it is how the antagonist is committed to something directly blocking the way of the hero.
* The antagonist should have a soft spot or “human” side – a human frailty, weakness, or gentler side in some gnawing way. He can not be entirely evil and still be believable.
* The antagonist must grow in the same way as the hero – through adversity and struggle. An antagonist can not grow stronger for no good reason.
* Sometimes the antagonist is merely a powerful idea or a terrible set of circumstances or a faceless organization – rather than an expressed character. But even still, it must have human qualities as much as possible, and have a believable reason to be standing in the way of the hero. And if at all possible – you should put a face to this before the story ends.
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6. ARCHES
For a story to fully satisfy the emotional state of an audience, everything and everyone in the story must change from “pole to pole” – as they say in the biz. If the protagonist starts out clean-cut and snooty, then he must end up grubby and humble. If he starts as a drunk, then he must end the story sober. If he’s angry in the beginning, he must wind up a Mr. Nice Guy. If he is physically strong at first, then in the end he must be beaten up and hardly able to walk. And the same should happen to the setting and every other element and character in the story.
Nothing tells a story more clearly than change. The weather must get colder or rainier or darker. The sound must get louder or softer or more sinister. The phases of moon must change. The snow gets deeper. The plans of the antagonist become more sinister. The protagonist faces ever harder challenges.
This change from one extreme to the other is often called “the arch” of the story. It is the shape of a continuous line drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole. In ET, for example, Stephen Spielberg uses pot of flowers to convey the failing health of the alien because the alien itself is too hard to read. In Apollo 13, the Earth keeps looming larger as time is running out. In Gone with the Wind, the mansions of the South fall into disrepair, and with all the slaves gone, the plantation owners themselves have to plant their own vegetables. The weak-minded get smarter. The wise get stupid. The unlucky catch a break. And the hidden evil is brought to justice.
Nothing stays the same.
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7. CONFLICT
There is no satisfaction in a story where a character speaks his mind for no reason at all. However, during an argument or a fight people will say just about anything – including huge lies, the naked truth, and a whole lot of other things they might not like other people to think about or remember later. If you need to have a character say something important, first make sure that he or she is angry or severely upset and distressed in some completely obvious way. That is the only time when characters let things slip out in believable ways.
Overall, characters should not get along very well in stories. Conflict increases tension and suspense since we have less of an idea for how these people might behave with each other in the next moment. In the Perfect Storm, two fishermen are at each other’s throats for most of the voyage. But when one of these guys gets snagged overboard on a long line, his nemesis is first one into the water to save him. These two longliners may have hated each other, but when push comes to shove we learn how true Gloucestermen will do anything to save each other’s lives at sea.
Use conflict to give your characters a good reason to say something important, and also use it to create opportunities for characters to transcend our expectations of them. If you want to induce a powerful sense of reality – give your characters a chance to prove themselves in a tough situation.
Next Time: The Structure of the Story
